Any confirmation of successful excess mileage V

[Alik0701]

pt2537

R0b

My BMW finance contract states that I have to pay excess miles and I have seen threads where you have stated that the law prevails in this instance. This means that should my credit file is adversely affected I can get this to court. My question is if you would be kind to advise;
1. Are you able to confirm success in this matter and also,

2. the potential court costs which I assume is reimbursed once you win the claim?

In addition has anyone successfully dealt with the financial service outside of court? Such as getting a favourable settlement figure as the worst case scenario? Meeting them halfway?

The reason I asked this last question is because my professional circumstances changed and I had to relocate leading to significant excess mileage due to travelling for work and back to home on a monthly basis.

Many thanks for your time in reading this and I look forward to your response.

[R0b]

Hello, to answer your questions in the same order:

1. Yes, there has been a County Court decision in 2018 against Mercedes who lost their case for excess mileage on a number of points. The thread can be found here but if you go to the last page, the transcript of the judgment I paid for is uploaded there for you to read.

2. There is another thread by Raymondo (click here) who had a lengthy battle with BMW and them recorded adverse entries on his credit file. He raised a complaint with Experian who liaised with BMW and apparently on the threat of Experian advising Raymondo to report them to the ICO, BMW have now removed all adverse entries. If you look at the last handful of posts you'll see Raymondo's explanation of how this happened.

It may be possible to hold Experian to account and claim damages from them on the basis that BMW are manipulating the markers on a credit account which are not intended for that particular purpose and if Experian are aware of this but continue to allow it to happen, you could sue for damages. I only say it is possible because it is notoriously difficult to hold credit reference agencies liable because they rely on the creditors to report accurate information to them. I wouldn't recommend you rely on this argument as the sole basis of your claim if there are other stronger arguments out there.

It's not clear if you have actually terminated the agreement or you are simply considering it. If the agreement is still alive, it would be sensible to call BMW and see if they are willing to amend the contract to include additional mileage coverage. There's no reason why they can't but if they refuse then you could say that they have been unreasonable in refusing to amend the contract due to unforeseen circumstances. You could mention that as part of your reason in your VT letter which might add some weight if you complained to the Financial Ombudsman who decide matters on what is fair and reasonable rather than strictly interpreting the law.

[Alik0701]

Many thanks for a swift answer Rob. Very grateful.

As an update. Spoke to BMW as the account is still alive and they have said they would still charge at 12p per mile regardless which does not change the situation at all. So it's a VT and going through the motions. As we have Raymondo being successful with his I think I'm in a good position to do the VT and dispute the excess mileage until it is sorted. Will update you if anything out of the ordinary pops up in the course of the process.